Cleveland, East Tennessee
Selected by Park Manager Erin Medley & Seasonal Interpretive Ranger Aubrey Michaels

Red Clay was the last Eastern capital of the Cherokee people before their forced relocation to Oklahoma in 1836. The Council Spring (Blue Hole Spring) on the site remains a solemn and sacred place for many Cherokee and is the heart of the park. Seasonal interpretive ranger Aubrey Michaels observes that park visitors will remark that they feel something at the park. She asked an Eastern Band Cherokee man about the phenomenon, and he responded, “the feeling that people feel here at the park is the prayers of [his] ancestors that have seeped into the ground here at the park.”